


From Jared's Personal Journal - All I know is that it's 1989 and we're on the road

by vega_voices



Category: Original Work, shadows in the spotlight
Genre: Character Study, Gen, M/M, character journal, character post, pubslush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-28
Updated: 2012-03-28
Packaged: 2017-11-02 15:14:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So I’m sitting here, stretched out in the oversized bunk Marc and I share, scribbling away while we’re flying down the highway toward our next destination. Jason is snoring. Marc is passed out – he’s adorable when he sleeps. Mike is staring out the window. Poor kid is on his second album with us and he’s still scared to death. Tony’s got his guitar out but I don’t think he’s actually writing anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Jared's Personal Journal - All I know is that it's 1989 and we're on the road

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the music of Queensryche, Iron Maiden, Queen, Metallica, Judas Priest, and more - Shadows in the Spotlight is the story of Marc Gadling, a young musician who is navigating the waters of the emerging metal scene in Los Angeles, the gay counter culture in the city, and the rising fears of what came to be known as HIV/AIDS. It tells the story of his family - the brother who loves him unconditionally, the lover who dies too young, the best friend who is the silent sentinel, and the young prodigy who proves that even after death, there is life. 
> 
> Here's how it works. Shadows in the Spotlight is available for pre-order on pubslush.com. Pubslush is a social publisher that allows the reader, not the editor, to chose what is read. Authors place the book on the site, and you, the reader take a gander. If you like what you read, place a pre-order as a promise, a promise that you will purchase this book once it is made available to buy. In addition, for every book that is published, pubslush donates a book to child literacy programs around the world. The thing is, this book cannot get published without your pre-order. If you're wondering what you're getting, Shadows in the Spotlight has a proven track record. An excerpt was published in the 2010 QSalt Lake Literary edition and it won the Honorable Mention in the 53rd Annual Utah Arts Council Fiction Writing Compeition (2011). 
> 
> For the past 30 days, support has been growing. But it isn't enough. 959 preorders are still needed in the next three months to secure publication. If you like your books peppered with heavy hitting doses of rock music, fairy tales of boys who make it big, and stories of how family is formed through passion and not blood, take note of what Shadows in the Spotlight has for you. 
> 
> Pre-order here: http://www.pubslush.com/book/view/198

December 17, 1972  
I think I’m gay. I’m a fag. I’m queer. I think I’m like those guys downtown who stand on the corner. I’ve heard about those clubs and … 

What are my parents going to say? What about … what will God say? Can I still get into heaven if I love men? I’m gay. I don’t know what to do about it. Can I change? Does it matter?

Does it matter?

I’m happy when I acknowledge it. Is that the important thing? Or is there something wrong with me? Does the devil have hold of my soul?

 

Let’s fast forward seventeen years, shall we?

Written just before my eighteenth birthday, I actually ripped those tortured words out of my journal and shoved them between my mattress and box spring. Unable to make the cross town trip to my family’s Parish to confide in Father James who would tell me to trust in God, I instead ran over to my girlfriend’s house (it wasn’t that much of a run, she lived right next door) and tossed pebbles at her window to catch her attention. Like every high school Romeo, I believed nothing was more romantic that tempting my sweetheart to her balcony where I would climb the fortress walls and sweep off her feet. In reality, Cynthia did not have a balcony. She did however have one of those very convenient trees with strong branches that came right below her window sill. When she didn’t respond to my heart-torn pebble throwing, I scaled the tree and crept to her window, ignoring the ice, the snow, the winds, and the weather of a Chicago December. None of that mattered in that frightening moment. Cynthia, the girl I loved, the girl I hoped to make a woman when she would make me a man, would comfort me. I couldn’t be gay.

I fell out of that tree, broke my ankle, and ended up in bed for three months with yet another bout of the pneumonia that still plagues me. As a kid, the recurrences could be attributed to the asthma and breathing problems that were a direct result of my premature birth. As an adult, my reasons for contracting it are much different. But, to this day, Cynthia hasn’t stopped laughing about that night when she cracked open her window to find me screaming like a little girl. Most of our phone conversations still begin with, “Hey, Jare, so you remember that time when you were scared to death that you were gay so you came over to my house and almost killed yourself?” And before you start thinking that she’s a horrible person, the woman nursed me back to health those three months of my life. She stuck with me through my senior year in high school and when I told her the truth about my sexuality, she was there for me. Cynthia gets to say whatever she wants to me. For example, just last week, as we in Time Machine were packing our bags to head back on the road, my phone rang. Marc, being closer to the phone as he always seems to be pounced and then started laughing.

“Jared,” he handed our new toy – the cordless marvel we finally invested in – over to me. “It’s your girlfriend.”

“Hi, Cynth,” was my response into the phone. Marc took over the packing (he’s much better at it than I am) and started tossing t-shirts into suitcases. 

“Hey, Jare,” Cynthia started out, “remember that time you were so scared to death that you were gay that you came over to my house and almost killed yourself?”

Usually when she starts a call like that, Cynthia is joking. That day last week, she wasn’t laughing. In fact, as she spoke to me, I heard tears choking her voice. Worried, I asked after her kids and her husband. They were fine. 

“You hate your life that much, Jared? That you’re going to go on tour again?” 

I was stunned into silence. 

Honestly, the words were nothing new. I heard them all the time from my lover, my band mates, my family, and my best friend. But over time, as I continued to live despite the rigors of touring, I had won all of them over to my side. I quickly realized, however, that Cynthia was speaking the words of our fans. 

So I’m sitting here, stretched out in the oversized bunk Marc and I share, scribbling away while we’re flying down the highway toward our next destination. Jason is snoring. Marc is passed out – he’s adorable when he sleeps. Mike is staring out the window. Poor kid is on his second album with us and he’s still scared to death. Tony’s got his guitar out but I don’t think he’s actually writing anything. 

This is my life: cramped tour busses, restless nights, endless trips to the hospital, and of course, the reason I keep going: the energy of the stage. How interesting? Book publishers say it might be worth something and Craig and Marc agree. I’m willing to go along with Marc’s opinion. For now. I think it’s kind of a joke. Gay rock star with AIDS on tour with boyfriend. News at eleven as the PMRC stages yet another bullshit protest and someone gets hurt in the rioting before the concert and somehow we get blamed for something the protestors started. I wonder when the last time was that Tipper Gore actually got laid. 

But whatever. The writing keeps my restless brain occupied on these long treks between cities and I hadn’t flipped through my old journals in a while. Hell, I’d forgotten that I’d taped the page with that terrified entry back into my journal after I came out to Mom and Dad and they hadn’t killed me over it. I’d almost forgotten about how much I prayed and prayed for salvation during the three months I was laid up with pneumonia. But those are stories for later. I’m talking about other stuff now.

When we were planning the tour, some idiot rep from Capitol asked why we don’t fly more. We can just hit the big cities, not worry about the smaller markets, and make it easier on ourselves. I had to remind him that Skid doesn’t work that way. We’re in the business of distributing albums for bands, not bleeding them dry, and if that means that we schedule tours so that we get from city to city on a bus that saw better days back in the 50’s, then so be it. Anyway, there are metal fans in Peoria just like in Los Angeles and it isn’t fair to keep the music out of the hands of the people who need it most. It sounds trite and crazy but it’s all about the music, baby. That and having enough money to actually stay at a hotel rather than bunk on the bus all the time. Dude, living an entire summer on a tour bus with four other smelly guys? Really not my idea of paradise. I mean, I love Marc. So much. But I love him more when he’s showered and we have a big bed to roll around on.

If that image disturbs you, stop reading right now. 

So we’re here, on the road. We kicked off the tour last week in Los Angeles – ten thousand screaming fans at the Coliseum; the girls pressed up against the gates, hell, the boys pressed up against the gates. Mike’s guitar solos ripped through the crowd like a bomb in a china shop (can I say that?) and God, Marc was just spot on. I’ve never heard his voice that clear and the fans could sense it. He leapt from the amps and bounced around the stage and I tell you, if this is how a headlining act tours then move over Metallica, there’s a new beast in town. 

Too full of ourselves? Those fuckers in Metallica could probably kill a virgin on stage and people would go insane and cheer for more. Let me tell you, I don’t know what’s cooler: watching Metallica or watching their fans. May we never, ever again have to be on a tour with them. Last time around it was like surviving fire to get through our set before the fans killed us. The guys in Queensryche were at one show and Chris, laughing, told me that he thought that Jimmy Page himself could show up on stage and the Metallica fans would boo him until their gods showed up. I can only hope that our fans have that same kind of passion.

I think they do.

There was that incident with the virgin, but I can’t talk about it until it’s out of arbitration. (Dude, I’m kidding.)

So I ask again, what’s so interesting about a gay guy on tour with his heavy metal band? It could be the whole gay guy who is in metal thing. I hate to break it to the macho men and the PMRC broads, but there’s more of us than you’ll ever know. I’m out because there’s no way on God’s green earth I could ever go back into the closet. Marc’s out because … well … have you seen the guy? I love him, but he makes me look like a flaming hetero. 

When he wakes up and reads this, he’ll possibly kill me. And then remind me that I look better in high heels than he does. It’s not my fault that he’s got fatter calves.

So what’s so interesting about this, a memoir of a gay guy on tour with his heavy metal band? Apparently it’s all the garbage I am currently spewing. It’s random thoughts about life on the road and about my lover and about how Metallica may be God’s gift to metal and may be what breaks metal out of the shadows and into the mainstream, but I think we’re actually more talented than they are.

I just lost the Metallica audience.


End file.
